“Veering sharply from traditional classical concert decorum, Leonard Slatkin told concert-goers in West Palm Beach, Fla., Tuesday night that he and the Detroit Symphony were ready for their close-up,” writes Mike Boehm in Thursday’s (2/27) Los Angeles Times. Slatkin invited the audience to “whip out phones, snap pictures of the scene, and post them on social media to instantly commemorate the moment…. With phones aloft and facing them, Slatkin and his troops provided a tender afterglow to [Ravel’s] ‘Bolero,’ playing an encore of ‘Touch her sweet lips and part’ from William Walton’s score to Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film of Shakespeare’s ‘Henry V.’ … ‘In the lobby after [Tuesday’s] concert, everybody was talking about how great it was,’ said [Detroit Symphony spokeswoman Gabrielle Poshadlo]…. Poshadlo said the orchestra’s concert programs in Detroit’s Max M. Fisher Music Center issue no advisory against cellphone photography. Pictures of its performances have been popping up online, she said, ‘so we know people are doing it. It’s never caused a disruption.’ ” The article references the broader public debate around use of smartphones at concerts, including a January 9 column by Los Angeles Times pop critic Randall Roberts, who encouraged people to recall concerts “not through digital archive but tranquil recollection.”
Posted February 28, 2014
